The Alabama Senate on Feb. 25, 2025. A federal judge Friday ordered Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen to inform her by Thursday of the Alabama Legislature's intent with regard to her order for a new state Senate district in the Montgomery area. (Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector)
U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco Friday ordered Secretary of State Wes Allen to report the Legislature’s intent on her previous order to redraw an Alabama Senate district in Montgomery by Sept. 4.
Manasco last week ordered Senate Districts 25 and 26 to be redrawn, ruling that they violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by giving Black voters less opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice than other voters.
“The parties agree that if the Legislature proceeds in a manner that results in the Court undertaking the “unwelcome obligation of . . . impos[ing] a reapportionment plan,”… the Court will need to appoint a Special Master to prepare remedial plans for the Court to consider,” Manasco wrote Friday.
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Allen filed his intent to appeal Manasco’s order on Thursday, saying in part that he did not know if the Legislature intended to redraw the districts. That would have to happen in a special session, called by Gov. Kay Ivey, to meet Manasco’s requirement for the map to be ready in time for the 2026 midterm elections. Allen wrote in the Status Report Thursday that if called, a special session would likely happen in late September or early October.
“Given the logistics involved in calling a special session, and certain timing demands and waiting periods required by the legislative process, it is not known at this time if the Plaintiffs’ proposed deadline of September 22, 2025 would provide a realistic opportunity for the Legislature to act if it chooses to do so,” he wrote.
Gina Maiola, the communications director for Gov. Kay Ivey, wrote in an email Friday afternoon that the governor’s office is reviewing the opinion “and consulting with necessary parties.”
Should the court’s decision be upheld, it would be the second time in four years a federal court found Alabama’s 2021 congressional and redistricting maps to be racially discriminatory. A three-judge panel that included Manasco ruled in 2022 that the state’s 2021 congressional map did not give Black voters a proper opportunity to choose their preferred leaders, leading to an odyssey that in 2023 resulted in a new congressional map with a majority Black district in west Alabama and a near-majority Black district in the southern Black Belt.
Manasco will appoint Richard Allen as the Special Master, David Ely as his cartographer, and Michael Scodro and his law firm, Mayer Brown LLP, as the Special Master’s legal counsel if the Legislature does not redraw the map. It is the same team that redrew the state’s congressional districts.
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Author: Anna Barrett